Dmitry Konov promotes the principles of sustainable development in Russian basketball

A 12 months in the past, Dmitry Konov stepped down as CEO of the petrochemical business SIBUR. Still, he carries on to help the progress of basketball in Russia’s areas. Getting bought his 2.6% stake in the firm, Konov is investing his personal resources in the Very good Deeds Components, a social method introduced on his initiative. Amongst other matters, the plan contains the growth of sports and a healthier lifestyle in 18 Russian metropolitan areas.

In the petrochemical marketplace, Konov was recognised as a supporter of sustainability and the use of recycled products. He took the identical solution to basketball, having labored for quite a few several years in the supervisory board of the Russian Basketball Federation (RBF), encouraging to popularize the activity in Russia and help the country’s leading basketball league.

In 2017, the league, with Konov’s direct participation, launched the Basketbottle environmental campaign. Containers in the form of basketball hoops had been mounted in the arenas of participating clubs to accumulate vacant plastic bottles during matches. All collected bottles were subsequently processed into recycled plastic, which is then utilized to make packaging, street components and other merchandise. Since then, the RBF has routinely hosted environmental matches, exactly where admirers not only dispose of rubbish but can also just take aspect in the development of artworks created from plastic bottle caps.

In 2018, the first sustainable basketball designed from recycled plastic bottles was offered, in partnership with Wilson, the world’s main sports activities gear company. After testing, the ball grew to become the RBF’s formal recreation ball in the 2020 period. Lenta site claimed that a further recycled plastic ball is at the moment remaining examined, this time made in collaboration with the Russian brand name Jogel, for feasible use in the next basketball period.

Considering that 2017, extra than 15 tons of plastic have been gathered and recycled as portion of a bottle recycling initiative at stadiums. Due to the fact 2019, the job has spread to the top ice hockey league in Russia, the Continental Hockey League. Very last calendar year, a plant in the Bashkortostan location introduced a project, below Konov’s leadership, to produce PET granules (raw components for the generation of plastic bottles) with 25% recycled plastic written content.

Konov has been fond of basketball due to the fact his student a long time and still trains the moment a week and plays with pals, which is why he paid out exclusive notice to basketball when acquiring sports activities infrastructure in Russia. Because 2014, at Konov’s initiative and in partnership with the NBA, present day basketball stadiums have been outfitted in nine metropolitan areas: Tyumen, Nizhnevartovsk, Tobolsk, Dzerzhinsk, Voronezh, Perm, Tomsk, Tolyatti and Blagoveshchensk. Avenue basketball facilities have also been opened at some of the stadiums.

The opening ceremonies for the basketball stadiums and courts were being attended by various NBA champions, these types of as Robert Horry and Bruce Bowen from the San Antonio Spurs and Brook Lopez from the Brooklyn Nets. Muggsy Bogues, who, at a height of only 160 cm, grew to become a basketball star, and Timofey Mozgov, the initial Russian NBA winner, also arrived. They all held basketball workshops for children, so encouraging encourage the activity.

With each other with the RBF, the SIBUR Basketball School was released. As aspect of this undertaking, a crew of coaches, such as the 2007 European winner Nikita Morgunov and the winningest mentor in the University student Basketball Association, Anatoly Laptev, visited the towns where by the enterprise operates and picked the most effective basketball players aged 14 to 16, who then obtained invites to the summer schooling camp. At the stop of the season, the best young players experienced an possibility to sign up for the Russian nationwide team as reserves. At Konov’s suggestion, an significant component of this joint software with the RFB was the planning and superior schooling of children’s basketball coaches, which should have a prolonged-term and sustainable impact on the development of the activity.

While the sustainability agenda is one of the state’s existing priorities, it is personal enterprise that implements it in practice. Domestic sports activities also will need to learn from this knowledge, and obtaining expert previous administrators to engage in a position in advertising and marketing basketball is an crucial stage in this path.